Nancy Sue Wilson (February 20, 1937 – December 13, 2018) was an American singer whose career spanned over five decades, from the mid–1950s until her retirement in the early–2010s. She was notable for her single "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" and her version of the standard "Guess Who I Saw Today". Wilson recorded more than 70 albums and won three Grammy Awards for her work. During her performing career Wilson was labeled a singer of blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and soul, a "consummate actress", and "the complete entertainer". The title she preferred, however, was "song stylist".[1] She received many nicknames including "Sweet Nancy", "The Baby", "Fancy Miss Nancy" and "The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice".[2]

At the age of 15, now attending Columbus, Ohio'sWest High School, Wilson won a talent contest sponsored by the local ABC television station WTVN. The prize was an appearance on a twice-a-week television show, Skyline Melodies, which she later hosted.[8] She also worked clubs on the east side and north side of Columbus, Ohio, from the age of 15 until she graduated from West High School at age 17. Unsure of her future as an entertainer, she entered college to pursue teaching. She spent one year at Ohio's Central State College (now Central State University) before dropping out and following her original ambitions. She auditioned and won a spot with Rusty Bryant's Carolyn Club Big Band in 1956. She toured with them throughout Canada and the Midwest in 1956 to 1958.[9] While in this group, Wilson made her first recording under Dot Records.[6]

When Wilson met Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, he suggested that she should move to New York City, believing that the big city would be the venue in which her career could bloom. In 1959, she relocated to New York with a goal of obtaining Cannonball’s manager John Levy as her manager and Capitol Records as her label.[10] Within four weeks of her arrival in New York she got her first big break, a call to fill in for Irene Reid at "The Blue Morocco". The club booked Wilson on a permanent basis; she was singing four nights a week and working as a secretary for the New York Institute of Technology during the day. John Levy sent demos of "Guess Who I Saw Today", "Sometimes I’m Happy", and two other songs to Capitol. Capitol Records signed her in 1960.

Wilson’s debut single, "Guess Who I Saw Today", was so successful that between April 1960 and July 1962 Capitol Records released five Nancy Wilson albums. Her first album, Like in Love, displayed her talent in Rhythm and Blues. Adderley suggested that she should steer away from her original pop style and gear her music toward jazz and ballads.[6] In 1962, they collaborated, producing the album Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley, which propelled her to national prominence with the hit R&B song, "Save Your Love For Me", and Wilson would later appear on Adderley's live album In Person (1968). Between March 1964 and June 1965, four of Wilson's albums hit the Top 10 on Billboard's Top LPs chart. In 1963 "Tell Me The Truth" became her first truly major hit, leading up to her performance at the Coconut Grove in 1964 – the turning point of her career, garnering critical acclaim from coast to coast.[10]TIME said of her, "She is, all at once, both cool and sweet, both singer and storyteller."[11] In 1964 Wilson released what became her most successful hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am", which peaked at No. 11. From 1963 to 1971 Wilson logged eleven songs on the Hot 100, including two Christmas singles. However, "Face It Girl, It's Over" was the only remaining non-Christmas song to crack the Top 40 for Wilson (#29, in 1968).

In the 1980s, she recorded five albums for Japanese labels because she preferred recording live, and American labels frequently did not give her that option. She gained such wide popularity that she was selected as the winner of the annual Tokyo Song Festivals.[6]

In 1982, Wilson recorded with Hank Jones and the Great Jazz Trio. In that same year she recorded with the Griffith Park Band whose members included Chick Corea and Joe Henderson. In 1987 she participated in a PBS show entitled Newport Jazz ‘87 as the singer of a jazz trio with John Williams and Roy McCurdy.[9] In 1982, she also signed with CBS, her albums here including The Two of Us (1984), duets with Ramsey Lewis produced by Stanley Clarke; Forbidden Lover (1987), including the title-track duet with Carl Anderson; and A Lady with a Song, which became her 52nd album release in 1989. In 1989, Nancy Wilson in Concert played as a television special.[6] In the early 1990s, Wilson recorded an album paying tribute to Johnny Mercer with co-producer Barry Manilow entitled With My Lover Beside Me. In this decade she also recorded two other albums, Love, Nancy and her sixtieth album If I Had it My Way.[6] In the late 1990s, she teamed up with MCG Jazz, a youth-education program of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild,[14] nonprofit, minority-directed, arts and learning organization located in Pittsburgh, PA.

In 1964, Wilson won her first Grammy Award for the best rhythm and blues recording for the album How Glad I Am. She was featured as a "grand diva" of jazz in a 1992 edition of Essence.[19] In the same year, she also received the Whitney Young Jr. Award from the Urban League. In 1998, she was a recipient of the Playboy Reader Poll Award for best jazz vocalist.[6]

Wilson married her first husband, drummer Kenny Dennis, in 1960. In 1963, their son, Kenneth (Kacy) Dennis Jr., was born, and by 1970, they divorced. On May 22, 1973, Wilson married a Presbyterian minister, Reverend Wiley Burton, within a month of meeting.[25] She gave birth to Samantha Burton in 1975, and the couple adopted Sheryl Burton in 1976. As a result of her marriage, she abstained from performing in various venues, such as supper clubs. For the following two decades, she successfully juggled her personal life and her career. In November 1998, both of her parents died; she called this year the most difficult of her life.[6]

In August 2006, Wilson was hospitalized with anemia and potassium deficiency, and was on I.V. sustenance while undergoing a complete battery of tests. She was unable to attend the UNCF Evening of Stars Tribute to Aretha Franklin and had to cancel the engagement. All of her other engagements were on hold pending doctors’ reports.[26][27]

In March 2008, she was hospitalized for lung complications, recovered, and claimed to be doing well.[28][27] In the same year, her husband, Wiley Burton, died after suffering from renal cancer.[29] On December 13, 2018, Wilson died at her home in Pioneertown, California after a long battle with kidney cancer.[30] She was 81 years old.[31]